all-ages

BAMM and the AAASCEC

The Department of African American and African Studies has a Community Extension Center (CEC) located on the Near Eastside of Columbus. The CEC strives to provide academic and community education opportunities for its Near Eastside neighbors and the greater Central Ohio community. We were lucky to have come in contact with the AAAS Departament and are now joining their efforts offering math programming at the CEC.

On three consecutive Fridays in February and March, we offered a Mathmagic workshop there. Every session we taught one or two different magic tricks, so people who wanted to come to all would not be seeing repeated content. The workshop was addressed to middle school students, but some parents and other accompanying adults joined to. We were really happy to see adults and children alike very engaged in discovering the math behind the magic tricks.

That is not all, because we will be offering a math exhibit every month on the second Saturday. On those days, which we have called Math Day, from 12:30 to 3 pm everybody is welcomed to stop at the CEC and explore the beauty and richness of mathematics through numerous games, puzzles and crafts.

We also plan to keep on bringing more workshops for the K-12 students in the community, as well as other math programming.

The Gift of Math

BAMM participated in Columbus Science Pub. The Columbus Science Pub presents a new talk every month. Speakers are invited based on requests from the audience, science topics in the news, and recommendations from the Columbus community. By connecting the Columbus community with expert speakers from across the fields of scientific study who use science in their daily lives, we grow science literacy.

In “The gift of math”, Monica Delgado, the Associate Director of Outreach at the Department, talked about the beauty of math. Every Science Pub is unique but math talks are always special. Monica had a table full of gadgets that we were all wondering how she was going to use. She discussed three topics that she learned about when she became a math student and that she still finds amazing and mind blowing. The first topic was the infinity, where Monica showed us infinity is not only really big numbers but very little numbers as well. By the second topic, soap bubbles, we knew what all the stuff on the table was for! When she asked us to suggest a possible shortest path to connect three cities, a young girl from the audience gave a good solution: connect two of the cities with a straight line and then connect the third one with a second line perpendicular to the first one. People are good at solving these problems but bubbles are better. Monica showed how bubbles can also plan the best path for a road trip across the USA. The third topic, Mobius bands, was an audience favorite. Everyone got to make their own bands, identifying their sides and cutting them to figure out the number of edges.

Monica closed her talk suggesting we all follow her example and put up math shows with our families this holidays. “This holiday season, give the gift of math”, she said.

Article contributed by Katherine O’Brien

Math at the Market

On October 19 OSU joined Celebration of Mind for the first time ever. Celebration of Mind is a yearly event in which people all around the world gets together to share their love for puzzles, games, math, and magic. It is also a commemoration of Martin Gardner’s legacy on his birthday (October 21).

But, who was Martin Gardner? He was an American popular science writer and pioneer of the field of Recreational Mathematics. For many years, he wrote a column, “Mathematical Games”, in Scientific American. He’s column brought mathematics to a big audience and captivated their minds. His monthly puzzle special compelled readers to try solving them, or else they had to wait a full month to know the answer. Gardner is an inspiration for us and many people who works on popularization of mathematics.

A young couple trying to solve the snake cube puzzleThis year, the Department of Mathematics, through the outreach initiative, participated in this great Celebration. Erika Roldan, the Director of Outreach, had an idea: what if we could bring math to the streets and put it side by side with what people nurtures from? So we went to Clintonville Farmer ‘s Market and “sold” math between apples and tamales, for free! What a better way of celebrating Gardner than bringing math to all people and mix it up with everyday life, like he did?

Our booth in the Market featured games and puzzles Gardner wrote about. We also had posters with challenges and puzzles to go.

At first, people looked at us with suspicion. More than one was probably wondering what was their worst nightmare doing at their favorite market. We offered pi and pentomino shaped organic cookies for those who solved a puzzle, and a few decided to give a try. Little by little more people approached our table. Some stopped, continued shopping and then came back. Once a puzzle was solved, people gained confidence and wanted to try another. Children were seriously engaged playing with math and their parents almost have to drag them away to continue with the shopping.

Then came the bubbles. You can always capture and audience when showing the amazing shapes soap film takes when sticking to the skeleton of a Platonic Solid. By the time the Market was about to end, people were asking if we were going to be there every Saturday.Erika showing a cubic bubble inside the skeleton of a cube

The purpose of the outreach initiative from the Department of Mathematics is to reach the general public of all ages and backgrounds. Events like this fulfill that purpose. When our events take place at a school, a science fair, or even here at OSU, attendees have to be interested enough to make the effort of coming. At the Market, we gave math to people who was not looking for it or even expecting it. We will continue to organize more of these activities to keep up with our mission.

A special thank you to the volunteers who were at the booth sharing their love for math: Maritza Sirvent, Yiwei Ren, KT Goldstein, and Rachel Skipper for baking cookies.